


A Taste of Pain

by Runar



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Dubious Consent, I never said this relationship was healthy, M/M, Violence, and fucking, hatesex my dudes, lets get dark babey, no beta we die like men, the bois are fighting, trans!caleb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:14:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24315634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runar/pseuds/Runar
Summary: "What do you plan to do now Caleb?" Essek asks, attempting to sound unaffected, but the thrumming pulse beneath the blade says otherwise."I'm not sure... but I know you're going to scream," Caleb breathes into the drow's ear. A shiver runs through Essek, and Caleb relishes knowing that he is the one who made the Shadowhand quake.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 14
Kudos: 167





	A Taste of Pain

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as stream of thought late the other night. There's be no Beta here, because lets be real, I don't have any pride left anyways. The delightfully supportive @goldengrahams and @minniebot enabled me, for better or worse.
> 
> Caleb is trans here, deal with it.
> 
> If you want more, tell me in the comments. I’m toying with a chapter 2 idea.

Caleb could not stop thinking of Essek. Anger, fear, shame, compassion, regret, sadness, and frustration welled in him the night Essek confessed to treason aboard the ship. The cacophonous emotions had come to a simmer with a nights rest, but flared once more at the conclusion of the peace talks. Seeing the gentle smile on Essek’s face as another person was condemned for his crimes, left Caleb nearly breathless with emotion. It was only because of his years of experience harnessing his anger that Caleb was able to rein himself in and not swing at that perfect smug face.

It has been a few days now, since TM9 returned to the Xhorhaus. Caleb used the time to come to terms with how things have changed. It was hard though. For the last few months Caleb had only seen Essek's charm, his passion, and his intellect. Caleb had been pulled in by the handsome features and precisely crafted image. Caleb had been fooled. A part of Caleb’s mind had whispered caution, but a larger part of him wanted to grasp any reason to believe Essek’s lies.

In part he hated himself for falling for the ruse. He hated himself for what he recognized in Essek. He hated that he precisely understood why Essek did what he did. But worst of all, from the way events were playing out, it looked as though Essek was going to get away without any consequences. Just as Caleb escaped without murder charges.

These conflicting emotions weighed heavy on Caleb, and therefore on the entire group as well. Roiling emotions kept Caleb from focusing his thoughts on a path forward. Normally, Caleb would sequester himself and study until clarity came, but the peace he sought was out of reach, running through his fingers like water. Reminders were everywhere now. The very walls of the house held thoughts of Essek- the man who gifted it to them.

Notes that were scribbled through his margins brought happy memories of hushed conversation on dunamancy. Remembering the thrill of the unknown, remembering the thrill of sharing proximity with the striking drow, remembering when Essek stood in this room and confidentially flaunted his talent, remembering how it felt to hear Essek laugh quietly, remembering how Essek sipped at his glass of wine during dinn-

Caleb stood and decided he needed to get out of the house.

Caleb needed to get away from the reminders- immediately. Everything was too much, and it needed to stop. He hadn’t spoken to Essek since they parted ways on the ship. Nobody in the Haus had spoken about the elephant in the room either. None of TM9 knew how to approach the issue. Caleb knew he was a powder keg waiting to go off, and that everyone else was uneasily avoiding the explosion. And perhaps wandering Roshana aimlessly would lessen the pressure.

Yet, with sure inevitability, Caleb found himself outside Essek’s an hour later. Still overwhelmed, and brimming with righteous anger.

It’s not like Caleb ever claimed to be smart.

Standing there before the gate, Caleb’s internal clock told him it was so late that most would consider it early. Surely Essek was asleep. If Caleb wasn’t going to find rest, then why should he? Spite spurred Caleb forward, opening the gate and striding to the front door. The emotional chemical cocktail thrummed through him, as he overcame social decorum and forcefully banged against the door ensuring the residents heard. He had Knock prepared to alert the entire neighborhood if that was what it would take.

Fortunately, an unfamiliar face answered the door- a servant. Deciding to follow the forward momentum he’d created, Caleb curtly gave his name and stepped inside without allowing the servant a chance to deter him.

There was a flurry of question and fluster but Caleb didn’t take any of it in. His focus was on the stairwell, waiting. He was going to wake the smug bastard up and give him a piece of his mind.

It didn't take long- or did it? Caleb didn’t know anymore, consumed by his thoughts and not looking to his internal clock- before Essek decided to float gracefully down the stairwell, in a show of composure that Caleb now recognized. Gently, Essek dismissed his servant to return to their duties, and approached.

“Caleb? Is there something wrong?” Essek’s voice was smooth, touched with concern.

“Yes. We need to talk. Now.” Caleb’s voice croaked out. He realizes that this the first he’s spoken since returning to Xhorhaus days ago.

Essek took an assessing look at the harried human, likely looking for injury.

 _‘Not that he had any reason to care about my well being, the selfish prick,’_ He thought bitterly. Caleb knew where Essek kept the good wine and moved to help himself to a glass, in an act of daring he wouldn’t normally think to indulge. Maybe, if his hands were occupied then he’d be less likely to reach for spell components.

Caleb couldn't hear Essek approach as much as he felt it, so he began to talk with his back turned. Probably best not to look at Essek’s calm facade right now.

“You know Essek. I don’t even know where to start.” He took a steading sip, and used the flavor to bolster himself momentarily before continuing, “I know the truth is not your preferred method of communicating but do you want to hear my truth anyways?”

Not waiting for a reply Caleb turned to face Essek, “I am angry.”

He took a proper look at the drow, who had taken the time to dress himself fully- or had he already been awake? Either way he floated there calmly, shrouded in his mantle of the Shadowhand, collected and aloof.

“I can see that,” Essek replied tersely. He broke eye contact and joined Caleb in pouring himself a drink.

“That’s all you have to say?” Caleb asked, incensed.

“And what pray-tell should I say to you?” Essek snapped back. His composure was unflappable as always, but his voice took on a frustrated edge.

A satisfaction suffused Caleb at the slight disturbance in Essek’s mood. The same sort of satisfaction that one felt in blemishing a pristine snow covered hill, or throwing a rock into a still body of water. Essek was so composed- so carefully protected behind his shield of indifference, and in his anger, Caleb felt the need to mar it.

“You used us Essek. You lied. You manipulated. You did whatever you wanted because you wanted it. And how do you expect us- me to respond to that?” Caleb squared his shoulders and made a questioning gesture with his hands.

“I can’t say I expected you to barge into my house half-cocked in the middle of the night,” Essek said quietly, dodging the topic at hand.

Unwilling to stop Caleb continued to unburden his jumbled thoughts, “And what? Now you get away with it! No repercussions. All your dirty little secrets organized and tidy in your locked closet.”

Essek snapped to attention at the veiled threat, finally taking the conversation seriously.

“Who are you to lecture me on morals? A murderer for hire- a betrayer to his own nation. You are clearly a paragon that I should aspire to.” Essek sipped the wine then, closing his eyes as though to seek reprieve from the conversation.

The mantel had a collar but it still left a clean view of Essek’s throat, and Caleb watched as he tipped his head and sipped. That someone so dirty was graced with a body so lovely further stoked Caleb smoldering anger.

“Do you even feel anything? When you torture and interrogate, does any part of you even _feel_ it?” Caleb retorted.

Essek seemed taken aback by the escalation, but unwilling to back down he moved closer to Caleb in a show of authority. With the float spell he was an inch taller, and it was satisfying to look down on the man.

“I am not a heartless fiend, despite how you may wish it. You said yourself that you see a mirror in me, so what is it that you are actually angry about?”

In the moment Caleb wasn’t even sure anymore. He was angry at the itch along his forearms. He was angry at the eternal night. He was angry at the scouts that were murdered in front of him. He was angry that he used Essek to execute the Scourger. He was angry at the shadows that Essek’s eyelashes cast along his cheeks.

Most of all Caleb was angry at having to look up to the hovering drow.

 _‘The mask comes off tonight one way or another,’_ Caleb thought.

With battle tested swiftness, Caleb cast dispel on Essek, and watched with a smile as Essek landed with rare awkwardness; wine sloshing out of the glass and across the front of his mantel.

_‘Damn that was satisfying.’_

“You are not above me Shadowhand. Stop pretending to be.” Caleb downed the rest of his wine quickly, unsure of how Essek would retaliate and didn’t want to end up wearing his as well. He grew up on a farm afterall, and wasn’t unfamiliar with brawling.

It seemed that blatant disrespect was the catalyst needed to spark action. Catching Caleb by surprise, Essek abandoned his wine glass and shoved roughly until Caleb’s back was up against a bookcase.

Anger shining through his eyes, “You don’t even understand do you? You don’t know the scale of what is happening around you!” Essek’s voice rose as he shouted his frustration, “You wander into people’s lives as you please, as though you deserve to be there!”

Invigorated by the contact Caleb shoved back in retaliation, and shouted, “And what is the better choice? Should I learn from you and murder them instead?”

“So it’s alright for _you_ to murder, as long as you’re using me as the tool and not doing it yourself?” Essek’s expression schooled into disdain, voice smooth and detached, “Clearly you belong with Assembly and not-”

Without conscious thought Caleb swung, his fist caught Essek across the flawless jaw.

A moment passed with Caleb breathing heavily, and shaking with adrenaline; Essek’s face turned to the side from the force.

When Essek straightened, there was a ferocity in him that gave Caleb a genuine moment of fear. Essek seized Caleb’s wrists and pinned them to the bookcase hard enough to bruise crowding Caleb further

“Why. Are. You. Here?”

“I am here because I deserve answers!” Caleb attempted to intimidate, unsuccessfully.

“No that’s not it,” Essek mumbled, more to himself.

Caleb opened his mouth to argue-

“Stop lying!” Essek shouted, nerves fraying.

The irony was not lost on Caleb.

Another moment of silence passed between them. For the first time Caleb noticed the darkening along Essek’s jaw and the trickle of blood from where his canine pierced his lower lip. There was a flush of darker skin across his cheeks, a mirror of the heated blush Caleb could feel across his own face.

_‘Not so perfect anymore are you?’_

A smirk settled on Caleb’s face, and he huffed in amusement. Realizing the blood, Essek sucked on his lower lip with a wince.

“Was that really necessary?” He asked, no less displeased.

“It’s what you deserve.”

Realization dawned, and Essek shifted through a series of expressions, before settling on decisive.

“So be it,” Essek said before aggressively kissing Caleb. Though, kissing may be an inaccurate description. In moments Caleb was bleeding from the lip as well.

Never before had Caleb experienced a faster paradigm shift. He struggled uselessly against the hands pinning him. They may be matched for strength but Essek had leverage in this position. Everything was becoming vividly clear and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face it.

Before Caleb could think on it, Essek surged in nearly devouring the man in his enthusiasm. Less blood this time, but more sensation, and Caleb felt another rush of adrenaline course through him. Somehow this was more daunting than having an all out brawl with Essek, but really how different could it be?

Caleb felt the thrum of fight or flight as his body began to respond. The sensation of being pinned, and absolutely flush against Essek left Caleb unsure if he wanted to grind against the man or choke him.

He could feel growing evidence of Essek’s own enjoyment pressed against thigh, and wow was this really happening?

This man is a murderer. _‘So am I.’_  
A disgusting liar. _‘So am I.’_  
An unmitigated ass. _‘So am I.’_

Caleb fought to hold onto his anger like a shield against his libido. It didn’t matter how good this felt. It didn’t matter if he’d wanted this long ago. Caleb knew all these things. He also knows his hips are rolling forward, and he was kissing the drow back with matching vigor.

Essek pulled back for a moment to admire his work with a smile, provoking Caleb once more, “Get the fuck off me.”

“Why? So you can swing at me again?” Essek countered. His hair was still immaculate, the bastard.

Caleb’s retort was cut off by another kiss, and damn if that isn’t a highly effective strategy. In struggling, Caleb gets his right hand free and immediately seizes Essek by the hair and yanks his head back.

“You deserve to hurt,” Caleb growls.

“And you don’t?” Essek says with eyes narrowed.

“This isn’t about me!” Caleb yells, veins thrumming with energy.

“Isn’t everything about you?” Essek counters with precision.

Now with a hand free Essek fights against the pull and drags Caleb by the back of the neck in for another punishing kiss.

Caleb tries one more time to push Essek off, and manages to get his back away from the bookcase a good foot or so. However, Essek takes the moment to pull Caleb’s jacket off his shoulders and down pinning his arms, before shoving the human roughly against the bookcase again. It was clear that Essek matched Caleb in anger.

“You’re not going to run away from this,” Essek said, “You can run from the Assembly but you’ll find I’m far more formidable.”

Frustration welled. Not only from the truth of Essek’s words, but the audacity of it all. “You’re a scared lonely man,” Caleb bit out clinging to his metaphorical shield once again. “And also a fool,” Caleb reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a piece of iron. Acting quick he shoved once more and cast hold person.

The combination of momentum and gravity landed Essek in a seated position on the adjacent settee, arms at his sides. His neck and head being the only parts of him still under control.

Instead of anger, Essek seemed… impressed perhaps, or startled.

Caleb stalked up to the restrained man, and loomed over, taking thorough enjoyment from the change in dynamic. And it was a sight to behold. Essek was affected alright. The bruise was steadily darkening. Dried blood adorned part of his jaw. His hair was an irredeemable mess. And he looked flushed and flustered.

“Look at you Shadowhand,” Caleb taunted, as he grabbed Essek’s chin and pulled him forward roughly, “Laid low by a mere human. What would your den think of you now?”

Caleb recognized the flash in those eyes as his words struck a cord. Essek’s breathing quickened, and he struggled against the spell.

Maintaining his air of control, Caleb shrugged off his coat and laid it carefully within’ reach beside Essek. He rolled his sleeves up and asked casually, “You know what I’ve wanted to do ever since the peace talks?”

Essek askes, “Wha-“

And is cut off as Caleb backhands him.

“What you've done is not okay,” he says plainly.

Essek grimaces and asks, “So does this make you judge and jury? You, an empire failure?”

Caleb shrugs off the barb and realizes that he needs to make a decision. He stood at the peak of two paths. He’s already in over his head, and frankly he wanted to keep going. He knows if Essek wanted him dead that he would be dead, and he knew if he wanted Essek dead well, it would have been so by now. No this was about _catharsis._

How good will it feel to paint Essek in his anger?

Both of them opened this door- and Caleb decides to walk through it.

Settling himself astride Essek’s lap, he pulls out the small dagger that Nott gave him. At the introduction of the blade Essek stills, a look of studious focus across his striking features.

“You’re right. I don’t know much.” Caleb drags the edge of the dulled blade lightly up Essek’s torso, starting at the navel.

“I know you spoke of being restrained by religion, restrained by morals, and even restrained by-” here Caleb applies some pressure on the upward movement and cleanly slices through the clasp holding the mantle closed at the collar, “- obligations.”

“And now you’re restrained by me. Tell me Essek, how does it feel?” Caleb asked with a disturbing calm.

“Interesting,” is the truthful response.

A tense silence settles, as they are both breathing heavily, reading and assessing one another’s expressions. Interpreting what they can of the situation.

“I am angry,” Caleb reiterates, dagger still in hand against Essek’s collarbone.

Essek glances at the blade with a ‘No Shit’ expression.

Using his free hand, Caleb pulls Essek’s head back by the hair, exposing the throat, and contemplatively drags the blade along the smooth lavender skin. “I wasn’t taught to get this close to a target before killing them. It’s always safer from a distance. That’s the benefits of fire you know?” He asked rhetorically.

"What do you plan to do now Caleb?" Essek asks, attempting to sound unaffected, but the thrumming pulse beneath the blade says otherwise.

"I'm not sure... but I know you're going to scream," Caleb breathes into the drow's ear. A shiver runs through Essek, and Caleb relishes knowing that he is the one who made the Shadowhand quake.

Watching Essek vulnerable and shamed beneath him curtails the raging anger in Caleb, into a simmering fury. In it's place an intoxication swims through him at the control he now wields. Caleb drags the dagger back down Essek body forcefully, with the intention to injure, cutting through the thin, expensive tunic; leaving a dark raised line along the skin in it’s wake, small pearls of blood rising to the surface. “And how lovely it will sound,” Caleb murmurs as Essek grits his teeth and groans.

A magical twinge touches Caleb scarce moments before he realizes what it means, and suddenly Essek is freed from the spell.

He moves quick and disarms the dagger, tossing it out of reach. One hand moves to grab the back of Caleb's head pulling him down for a clash of mouths that vaguely resembles affection. The other hand takes hold of Caleb's flimsy collar and tears the threadbare cloth open eager to level the power exchange.

He will make Essek regret. He will regret the pain and the betrayal Caleb has suffered. With calculated maliciousness Caleb concentrates his burning pain so it manifests along his palm. His fingertips blacken.

"You will not forget how you have betrayed us, I won’t allow it,” Caleb hisses, tugging open the torn shirt and firmly planting his searing hot palm above Essek’s heart. The piercing scream that rings though the room fills Caleb with a soothing restitution. The emotional high feels as though he has been drinking lightning.

The smell of burning flesh is familiar.

The thrum of arcane heat is familiar.

The way Essek scream shifts into a low moan is not familiar.

Experimentally, Caleb douses the spell and pushes his hand back against the raw burn. Essek moans again and grinds his hips up against Caleb. Well that’s interesting.

“You would be turned on by pain,” Caleb says sardonically.

“Don’t act so coy, as if you are so innocent,” Essek says lowly, both of his hands now grasping Caleb’s face and forcing eye contact. "How many times have you fucked yourself thinking of the people you've killed?”

For one small moment, Caleb recognizes that Essek has truly gotten under his skin. In that moment Caleb has it in him to ruin the man. How simple it would be to squeeze that delicate throat until the twitching stopped.

And then he laughs. It's short and harsh and surprises them both. As quickly as the bloodlust overcame Caleb, it receded leaving a ringing in his ears from the force of it.

"You don't know anything about me," Caleb snarls- and for the first time he is the one to silence Essek with a kiss, then moving to speak directly into Essek's ear. 

"You cast away your morality, and wade through the filth that is the Assembly, and what did you get for it?” Caleb bites the edge of the long elegant ear hard in emphasis. Essek makes an absolutely delicious noise of pain and pleasure, nearly shaking with each breath. "They are using you and it’s disgusting."

"I don't care," Essek confesses.

"Don't lie," He demands, "Don't fucking lie to me, Essek. You could be _worth_ something if you weren’t debasing yourself for the likes of Ikithon and Da’Leth!”

“I don’t care!” Essek retaliates by tangling his hands in Caleb’s long hair angrily.

At this point Caleb decided enough was enough, and picked up the piece of iron once again and cast hold person. To his delight it landed. Essek was restrained a second time, arms at his sides.

“Two times Essek!” Caleb boasted, “You allowed yourself to be taken by a level two spell so easily. Is this the might of the Kryn Dynasty?”

The anger rolling off of Essek now was almost palpable.

“How embarrassing.”

“You know enough to restrain me, for your own well-being.”

Caleb stands, feeling an ache make it’s way through his body that is not unlike after a particularly rough battle, and reaches down to undo the clasps that keep Essek’s pants tied. Then shoving them away, until he is exposed down to the knee.

“You hate this don’t you? Loosing control. It’s the only thing you’ve clung to in your miserable life,” Speaking as though Essek was a petulant child. Caleb deliberately took off his boots and divested himself of his own pants.

Before him was a sight to behold.

Bruised, bedraggled, and bleeding, Essek Theyless, the Shadowhand, was debauched, exposed, and painfully aroused for Caleb’s personal enjoyment. Perfect recall had never been so sweet.

“How would your umavi feel if she knew you were bound and desperate for a lowly human?” Caleb traced a teasing finger up from Essek’s exposed knee, along the twitching thigh, featherlight along the pelvis, along the smooth lavender expanse of Essek’s torso playfully drawing a swirl in the droplets of blood, then moving upward until gently cradling his jaw in a mockery of intimacy.

All Essek could muster was a long deep groan, until summoning the words, “She would-“

Before he was cut off as Caleb applied pressure to the vulnerable neck in his grasp.

“Uh-uh. You don’t seem to get it Essek.“ Caleb fluidly mounts Essek, aligning them and teasing himself with the tip of Essek pressed ever so barely into him.

“You use other people. Be ready to be used in return.” Caleb was riveted as he watched Essek go though a whirl of emotion. The gorgeous bastard had no mask to hide behind any longer. Caleb had seized any composure Essek had left and shattered it.

As he settled his weigh on Essek fully, stretching pleasantly to accommodate the intrusion, Caleb squeezed his hand harder. He could feel Essek attempt to moan as the vibration danced against his palm.

“You. Are. Not. In. Control. Shadowhand.” Caleb emphasized each word with a downward snap of his hips.

It was then he let go, and Essek gasped desperately for air.

Caleb worked to find his own pleasure, using Essek as a toy, and setting a rhythm that made his toes curl. He braced his hands on Essek, and dug his nails in for stability.

“You call me desperate,” Essek sounded as rough as he looked. “But I didn’t know you could get this wet. What part excites you the most Caleb? Is it the flimsy illusion of control? Or have you wanted this from the start?”

Almost on reflex Caleb slaps him again without interrupting the punishing pace his hips have set. The cascade of sensations coursing through Essek were overwhelming him, leaving him reeling.

Caleb could feel himself getting close, but the soreness across his body was a painful distraction keeping him from the edge. Eagerly he reaches over and pulls a potion from his coat, quickly working the cap off, and bringing it to his lips.

The distraction seemed enough to weaken the spell and Essek was freed. Greedily, he seized Caleb by the jaw, and stole the potion from within Caleb mouth in a combative kiss.

“You piece of shit thief!” Caleb exclaimed, watching furiously as some of the markings across Essek’s face faded. What little of the potion that did make it into Caleb eased the soreness.

Seething, Caleb began to lash out but Essek learned quickly, and wrapped his arms around Caleb, pinning him against Essek’s chest. Following impulse Essek sunk his teeth into Caleb’s shoulder biting down as hard as he wanted until he could taste nothing but blood.

Caleb’s scream mirrored Essek’s own, and his vision went white for a moment.

Galvanized by the revenge, Essek began chasing his own pleasure as it rapidly came upon him, snapping his hips up for all he was worth.

One punishing bite after the other worked its way up Caleb’s neck until he had the small human ear beneath his lips, “Who knew you looked so good with me inside of you?”

It was the last push Caleb needed and he came hard; nearly convulsing, and definitely crying.

Essek rode through the delectable pull and squeeze of Caleb’s body around him, “Do you want to know the best part of this Caleb?” Essek panted his rhetorical question, knowing Caleb did not have the ability to respond, “You are mine now,” he growled before following Caleb over the edge, and filling the outrageous human in his arms.


End file.
